1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microchip having an internal fluid circuit therein suitably used for biochemical test, chemical synthesis, environmental analysis, and the like.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, in the fields of medical care, health, food, drug discovery, and the like, detection or quantitation of biological substances such as DNA, enzyme, antigen, antibody, protein, virus, or cell as well as chemical substances has become increasingly important, and various biochips and micro chemical chips (such chips will hereinafter be collectively referred to as “microchip”) with which the above-described substances can be easily and conveniently measured have been proposed.
The microchip can be used to allow a series of experimental and analytical operations, which are conventionally performed in a laboratory, to be conducted within the small chip. The microchip accordingly provides many advantages that the amounts of samples and liquid reagents to be used are very small, the cost is low, the reaction rate is high, high throughput test or analysis can be conducted, and the test or analysis results can be immediately obtained at the site where the sample was extracted, for example.
A conventionally known microchip includes a fluid path network, called a “fluid circuit” (or “micro fluid circuit”), which is constituted of several kinds of parts (chambers) for performing particular treatments on liquid such as a sample or a liquid reagent present in the circuit, and flow paths connecting these parts (for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open Nos. 2007-285792, 2009-133805, and 2009-109429).